all there never was
by letsplaypretend
Summary: The world is made up of moments, of lies that are hidden behind shuttered windows. It ends with a whisper, but it is the screams in the spaces between words that makes it tick before then. A series of drabbles, all pairings and characters.
1. Not Alive

**Title: Not Alive**

**Word Count: 207**

**Prompt: Tell about the biggest lie you ever told.**

**Character(s): Draco Malfoy**

**Rating: K+**

**Warnings: none.**

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><p>Sometimes, he wonders if he is even human anymore.<p>

Human beings cry, after all, and he does not. He never has. That is something he proud of, though, which is another strike against his humanity, probably. He isn't sure. Maybe some of them do, but he wouldn't know – he grew up in a world where that would never be tolerated. After all, to cry is to be weak, and to be weak is to be dead.

He is not dead.

And that is the biggest lie he ever told, because if anyone in this world is dead, it is Draco Malfoy, and he doesn't even know it, not yet.

He doesn't realize it when blue eyes stare back at him, faith evident in the fact that he will do Good, even though he has never done anything of the sort. Or when his mother saves a boy who might have died for him, for his sake, and condemns them to forever be half in, half out. Or even when that same boy nods to him, and his wife clings to his hand and wishes she could bring him back.

He is not dead.

But he is not alive, and that is a truth he will never mention.


	2. Lips of Angels

**Title: Lips of Angels**

**Word Count: 150**

**Prompt: "We are learning to make fire."**

**Characters: Hermione G. & Ron W.**

**Rating: K+**

**Warnings: Slight sexual references.**

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><p>Brown hair mixes with red on a pillow, the creamy ivory of it one of the few colors that the two could ever agree upon. His hair is darker than hers is, in a way – because fire is always darker than wood, and fire consumes wood. It is stronger.<p>

"You're awake."

But not better.

"Yes."

The woman turns her head, and he his, and they stare at each other across a pillow. They are not perfect. (No one is perfect.) Sometimes they are grateful for that – because their friends live in a sort of hell, and at least they are free from that. No one expects anything from them, because they are not _HarryandGinnyPotter_ and they are not perfect.

"Pancakes or waffles?"

There is a giggle, and she pulls him back to her, her breath lingering on his lips – morning breath, but they are past that. His is worse. "You."


	3. Sharp Keys

**Title: Sharp Keys**

**Word Count: 217**

**Prompt: "Start your story with this line: Alice tried to remember who gave her the key…"**

**Character(s): Alice L., Neville L.**

**Rating: K**

**Warnings: none. (Besides possible horrificness.)**

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><p>Alice tried to remember who gave her the key, her mind fuzzy – sharp edges that had been there when she was younger, or whenever it was that she wasn't blurry, quickly erased as soon as they were made, and there was someone to blame for this, of course (there was always someone to blame), but she didn't know who it was. Not that it mattered - the next five minutes would make it impossible for her to remember that she'd had a key in the first place, anyway.<p>

A form floated by her and left, and for an instant, Alice thought that it was important –Important, even, which was more than important but less than vital, which was also less than Vital, and there was nothing more than Vital, because she had never remembered it – but lost it before she could grasp it. Maybe it was Neville?

It couldn't be Neville, and the pain accompanied by her son's name was sharp enough to cut through the haze for the barest of moments – not concrete. Nothing was concrete. It never was, she didn't even expect it anymore, because that would mean she could be let down, and that wasn't worth it.

A pale hand curled around the key, sharp edges digging into soft skin.

It wasn't worth it.


	4. Broken Plates

**Title: Broken Plates**

**Word Count: 221**

**Prompt: How would a broken plate feel?**

**Character(s): Cho Chang, Cedric Diggory**

**Rating: K+**

**Warnings: None. Set during Dumbledore's speech in GoF.**

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><p>She doesn't cry when she hears how he fell, her Knight In Shining Armor, of how he battled the Dragon – or Snake, but she doesn't want to think about it like that and won't won't <em>won't<em> – and how he lost, and she thinks that maybe, just maybe, the tears that _aren't_ are sent to him. Maybe they're a sign for him, wherever he is – because witches like her don't believe in the Afterlife, no matter how much they want to, because sometimes you can't make it happen no matter what and this was the only life you had so _make it count_ – and they're just a way that he knows he is still missed.

She hopes so, anyway, because if not –

Cho Chang can't say that it will break her anymore. She is already broken, and when they raise their glasses in a salute to the Boy Who Did The Right Thing Even Though It Was Hard, there aren't any tears on her face, no matter what the others might say. They aren't tears that drip from her nose, from her cheekbones – _"So beautiful, Cho," feather light kisses on the skin beneath her eyes, "I almost lo –" _– they aren't tears. There will never be tears. They are the remnants of broken dreams, and she doesn't know which is worse.


	5. Nothing at All

**Title: Nothing at All**

**Word Count: 329**

**Prompt: Silence is a great healer.**

**Character(s): **

**Rating: K+**

**Warnings: None. **

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><p>When they go to bed that night, there is silence. He knows that this isn't the way it is supposed to be - because isn't there something in the books that you are not supposed to go to bed angry at someone? Or something like that? He doesn't know anymore, and he would ask her but he can't, so it doesn't really matter - but it doesn't seem to matter to her, so then it doesn't matter to him.<p>

He is always giving it up for her, but it had worked out until now, because she gave everything up for him.

The bed feels bigger than it ever has, even though last night she was complaining about how she didn't even have enough room to turn over, and won't he please just buy a bigger bed? They can afford it; it is just them in their house that is too big and bed that is too small. But today the house is too small and the bed is too big, and he wishes he had never said anything at all.

They seem to be stuck in this kind of a paradox, and he doesn't really know how to break it - because to break it would be to heal them both, but he isn't entirely sure that he wants to be healed. He knows that she doesn't, and that's what all of this is about - she likes that she is broken, likes that she has to be held together by spit and wooden crosses and love that burns, and he hates it, because his mouth is dry and the hardware store has run out of nails, and his love is more like water than anything else.

When he slides an arm over her stomach, though, she doesn't push him away - doesn't move closer to him, but that doesn't seem to matter, because the bed is small enough that they are already close - and he counts it as a victory.


	6. Stay Away From the Heartline

**Title: Stay Away From the Heartline**

**Word Count: 584**

**Prompt: Mailed Valentine card never arrives.**

**Character(s): Draco M. & Harry P.**

**Rating: High T**

**Warnings: Harsh language**

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><p>His fingers tremble while attaching the card to the leg of the owl, and he has to pause a moment and breathe. In, out. In, out. In, out, inout, inoutinoutinoutin - stop. Stop and breathe. Breathing is important, and grey eyes stand out even more in a face that is paler than it had been before, because breathing is overrated. Right? It's important, but important things don't matter.<p>

He breathes.

It is just a card. _Just__ a card_. That doesn't seem the right way to convey what is written inside -

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><p><strong> and I think maybe we could be something - <strong>

** anyway I never wanted to fall in -**

**I hope you -**

**it's not that big a deal, though, right -**

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><p>- But he can't say that it's his entire heart written up in the middle of a card made out of the best parchment he could find - and wouldn't his Father be pissed, but the bastard was in Azkaban where he fucking <em>belonged<em> - so he settles for card. The owl hoots and startles him, and his eyes widen, but he still doesn't let go of its leg - that would signal that he is ready to let go of his card (heartcardheart_card_) and he definitely isn't.

The man who never saved anything probably should be ready, but isn't, which isn't that surprising, if you knew him.

Not that many people did.

A snort, a laugh, a sob - the sound that falls from the sharp lips on a sharper still face can't be contained in any one definition, which is so _startling_ who he is that it's almost ironic. Almost, because there is only one person that actually knows him, which is probably more of a problem than he wants to admit that it is.

This time, the owl doesn't bother with hooting, but nips at his fingers, and, startled, the man lets go of the bird. It seizes its chance and soars out the window before he can get it back - not that he tries - and his gaze watches it wing out the window. So that was that - and the weight that he hadn't realized on his chest grows heavier, because now he _cannot take it back_ - and when, hours later, he closes the window and leaves the room, he cannot help but wish that the bird won't ever get to where it was meant to go.

****The words are crossed out anyway. It's not like Harry will be able to read it.

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><p><strong> I love you. I think.<strong>

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><p><em>For Christine, because she loves Drarry.<em>


	7. Statues

**Title: Statues**

**Word Count: 416**

**Prompt: Write in the voice of "a rope, about to snap."**

**Characters: Lavender B., mentioning of unnamed male.**

**Rating: T**

**Warnings: none.**

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><p>Those around her still don't know what to say when they look at her – she can see it in their eyes, in the hesitation before they speak, the weighing of each word before it leaves lips that have been shaped so perfectly as to keep the scars that litter her body from flaring up again.<p>

She wants to scream at them that there is no point, that the scars are just that – they're scars, they aren't going to get better or worse, they're just there and _why can't they see that_? Why can't they understand that she isn't going to split, isn't going to be a rope that is a second away from splitting into the little hairs that cover its ends –

When are they going to realize that she's not fragile?

Her name might be a flower but she's not that breakable – a flower that can be broken off and kept in a clasp for a night or a day or even longer than that if you're really lucky, that's ParvatiPadmaDaphne. That's not her. It's never been her.

She's a tree, she's a statue – she's unbreakable. These scars, they don't mean anything; she wants to scream it, to shout it to the world, wants to cry tears of metal and rock and stone so that when they hit they don't inspire pity or worse still, so they don't make the victim feel like they're being merciful for talking to her.

Blonde hair, blue eyes – she's beautiful. They should be so lucky as to talk to her. Her skin is fair, and pretty, and smooth, and _he_, at least, realizes that; he touches her at night as though she isn't a flower as though she isn't going to break _because she isn't_.

She's a goddess to him – he screams praise into the creases of her elbow, bites her where anyone can see it and soothes her with a tongue that can just as easily shatter all thought she's ever had, and when she's with him, she isn't breaking, she's building.

Her scars aren't scars – they are, though, they never stop being that – but they aren't on her face anymore, or on her body; they're in her heart, and they make her strongerfasterwiserbetter than she ever was before, and even when he does treat her as though she's going to break – this baby is going to break her back, maybe – she isn't breakable.

She's strong, and she's proud, and she's Lavender, and that's all that's ever mattered.


End file.
